Beautiful World, Where Are You

Alice Kelleher is a 29-year-old famous novelist who stays in the Irish countryside after recovering from a mental health crisis. Alice grew up in a poor, unstable home, and spent time after college working in cafés before her first manuscript received a generous offer. Now rich and regrettably famous, Alice struggles with reconciling her public image and private personhood.

Alice much prefers to intellectualize her feelings rather than endure the lived experience. When in college, Eileen said Alice had “a very loud speaking voice, dressed in ill-fitting second-hand clothes and seemed to find everything hilarious” (29). This memory of college-age Alice contrasts with the present character; when meeting new acquaintances, Alice comes across as brusque, intimidating, and argumentative “by the way [she] acts, putting the fear of God into people” (300) through biting intellectual quips. While this brings her commercial success through her writing, it hampers her emotional wellbeing.

Alice writes emails to Eileen, wherein she philosophizes and commiserates about the miseries of humanity. She occasionally slips out of communication with friends, and though Eileen says she’s establishing herself as rarified, prestigious figure, Alice struggles with depression and the need to “prove that [she] was a special person” (233), especially in hearing Eileen, her best friend, describe her as boldly avant-garde.